"According to the APU's off-the-shelf specs, it packs a quad-core 2.9 GHz processor an an integrated HD 6550D graphics core," writes Kevin Parrish. "The APU will work in tandem with the dedicated HD 7670 GPU which is clocked up to 1 GHz, supports DirectX 11, and is accompanied by 1 GB of dedicated VRAM.

"On a discrete graphics level, sources say that the PlayStation 4 will be "toe-to-toe" with Microsoft's Xbox 720, as the latter console will reportedly use AMD's HD 6670 card. The HD 7670 is actually a re-branding of last year's HD 6670 featuring the same specs across the board. It's an entry-level GPU by today's standards, costing around $74.99 USD, but capable of cranking out just over 30 FPS in Metro 2033 and Crysis 2 with the settings at high and the resolution cranked up to 1920 x 1080."

So the next-gen consoles launching sometime in 2013 or possibly even 2014 are only going to get low-budget current-gen graphics cards? How...disappointing.

If the rumors are true, this means that the next PlayStation and Xbox consoles will be running 2011/2012 low-end GPUs in 2013/2014. PCs will have already outpaced them by a couple of years when they hit shelves. No wonder CD Projekt developer, Mark Ziemak, said he doesn't think that the next Xbox will be much different from the current generation.

"If next gen is around the corner pretty soon, then we are hoping the experience that we got at this moment will actually help us in creating the games for other consoles," Ziemak told OXM. "I don't think they'll be so much different. I hope they won't be so much different that we have to totally change our controls and stuff like that."

Changing the controls and "stuff like that" might be a pain and completely unncessary, but you'd think a serious boost to graphics power would simply go without saying.

Maybe these are just rumors. Maybe if we're lucky, Sony and Microsoft will look at this and start a GPU arms-race and the next-gen consoles will end up packing a serious punch. Otherwise, it looks like serious graphics will remain in the realm of the PC exclusively.

Keeping costs down is obviously an important task. The PS3 launched with an unreasonably high, and unfortunately prohibitive, price-tag. Neither company wants to repeat that mistake. But the sad news for gamers is that consoles tend to restrict the level of innovation across all platforms, even the PC. Even with customized systems, this hardware sounds mighty weak.